Tuesday, December 05, 2006
PR Post Mortem
My press release was not effective in generating press or traffic on my blog site. Back to the drawing board.
The new plan is to make my blog (keystoneisit.blogspot.com) my vehicle for providing "news" and opinions (or "tips and tricks" as I like to call them). My reasoning is as follows: The blog is an established vehicle for publishing this sort of information. Blogs have a sizeable readership and the search engines index them quickly.
I am planning regular postings on my blog in an order to build a body of info and hopefully attract a readership. This in turn should lead to business for my company and income for me.
I've done 5 posts so far. Check them out.
Now the question is, "How do I promote the blog?"
The new plan is to make my blog (keystoneisit.blogspot.com) my vehicle for providing "news" and opinions (or "tips and tricks" as I like to call them). My reasoning is as follows: The blog is an established vehicle for publishing this sort of information. Blogs have a sizeable readership and the search engines index them quickly.
I am planning regular postings on my blog in an order to build a body of info and hopefully attract a readership. This in turn should lead to business for my company and income for me.
I've done 5 posts so far. Check them out.
Now the question is, "How do I promote the blog?"
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Initial Results
The press release went out about 24 hours ago. As the screen shot shows, it comes up on a Google News search for "Blog."
The stats on PR Leap indicate that the release has had 70 pageviews. The blog itself has had fewer than 10 page views.
The stats on PR Leap indicate that the release has had 70 pageviews. The blog itself has had fewer than 10 page views.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
PR Adventures
With input and encouragement from fellow MSIG members, I prepared a draft press release that I wanted to inflict upon the world. What next? How do I format and distribute it?
The Blogosphere and Real Simple Syndication: Blogs are hot these days, according to the media. Blog readers "subscribe" to blogs and automatically download RSS/Atom feeds that update them when new items and comments are posted. Google indexes blogs, so theoretically people can search and find you.
By creating a free blog at blogger.com (see keystoneisit.blogspot.com), I was able to use their templates and easily get an RSS/Atom feed (see keystoneisit.blogspot.com/atom.xml). Blogger.com is owned by Google, BTW.
Wire Services: Unfortunately, due to the simplicity of the XML tags defined in RSS/Atom, you cannot control the look of your feed (the blog looks pretty but the feed is (ugly) text). That requires a different flavor of XML.
After further research, I settled on NITF because it "is the most commonly used XML vocabulary among news publishers worldwide." Here's my press release in NITF: www.keystoneisit.com/20061103.xml.
Imagine my surprise in finding that none of the online "wire services" that distributes press releases accepts NITF formated documents. Each wire service has its own web form you use to enter plain text in the different fields of its standard release form. You have to pay extra to put in links and graphics. Live and learn.
Dave Saunders counseled using PRNewswire and spending $200 for enhanced distribution. I am sure this is good advice, but for my first effort, I decided to go with a less ambitious and costly option. I went with PRLeap and opted for the $60 package that provides links, stats and Google News indexing.
I copied and pasted my press release into the appropriate boxes in the PRLeap form and submitted it to them. IT WAS REJECTED by the editors at PRLeap. They said it was a news article rather than a news release. It wasn't promotional enough!
Back to the drawing board. My next effort was more focused and promotional. It was accepted and went out on the wire today! See www.prleap.com/pr/55575/ I'll let you know what happens stat-wise.
Please post comments here.
The Blogosphere and Real Simple Syndication: Blogs are hot these days, according to the media. Blog readers "subscribe" to blogs and automatically download RSS/Atom feeds that update them when new items and comments are posted. Google indexes blogs, so theoretically people can search and find you.
By creating a free blog at blogger.com (see keystoneisit.blogspot.com), I was able to use their templates and easily get an RSS/Atom feed (see keystoneisit.blogspot.com/atom.xml). Blogger.com is owned by Google, BTW.
Wire Services: Unfortunately, due to the simplicity of the XML tags defined in RSS/Atom, you cannot control the look of your feed (the blog looks pretty but the feed is (ugly) text). That requires a different flavor of XML.
After further research, I settled on NITF because it "is the most commonly used XML vocabulary among news publishers worldwide." Here's my press release in NITF: www.keystoneisit.com/20061103.xml.
Imagine my surprise in finding that none of the online "wire services" that distributes press releases accepts NITF formated documents. Each wire service has its own web form you use to enter plain text in the different fields of its standard release form. You have to pay extra to put in links and graphics. Live and learn.
Dave Saunders counseled using PRNewswire and spending $200 for enhanced distribution. I am sure this is good advice, but for my first effort, I decided to go with a less ambitious and costly option. I went with PRLeap and opted for the $60 package that provides links, stats and Google News indexing.
I copied and pasted my press release into the appropriate boxes in the PRLeap form and submitted it to them. IT WAS REJECTED by the editors at PRLeap. They said it was a news article rather than a news release. It wasn't promotional enough!
Back to the drawing board. My next effort was more focused and promotional. It was accepted and went out on the wire today! See www.prleap.com/pr/55575/ I'll let you know what happens stat-wise.
Please post comments here.
